More cute Raptor Resource Project babies!

[cairistiona]

I've been keeping my eye on the Great Spirit Bluff peregrine falcon webcam and today there are two brand new little hatchlings!  Soooo cute!  I wasn't able to grab a screencap of the babies, but here's the mom, who's name is Michelle (apparently for the falcons RRP has no problem with anthropomorphizing):



I had to giggle at one commenter on the site when they saw the babies: "this is so cute my head just exploded into a giant pile of kittens"   I think mine did too!  The babies are little balls of white fluff.  There's four eggs, so two more to go.  This site doesn't give nearly as much information about peregrines as the Decorah Eagles site does about eagles, so I have no idea if 4 eggs is a normal sized clutch, nor do I know much about mortality rates.  I'll have to do more research, which will be fun.  I have already noticed that, unlike eaglets who don't eat until about 24 hours after hatching, peregrine chicks seem to come out of the egg starving!  Mom has already fed them at least once.

So, fair warning, I will probably be posting falcon baby pics now and then just like I do the eaglets.  Yes, I am obsessed.

Comments

[ellynn-ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Yay, cute! :)

There's another interesting link that clodia gave me some time ago:

http://www.ntu.ac.uk/ecoweb/biodiversity/falcons/index.html?campaignid=falcons

It's so great to watch all these beautiful animals... :)

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I've been clicking in on that one, too, now and then... the weather has wreaked such havoc on that little falcon family. Sometimes watching nature can be a sad experience, can't it, though I love how the Internet has opened up so many opportunities for watching.

[mrowe.livejournal.com]

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

This will give me babies to watch after the eaglets have fledged. :)

[lady-branwyn.livejournal.com]

I used to work in a downtown office building that had a nest of peregrins on it. The building management liked them because they kept down the pigeon population! They wished they had falcons on their other properties.

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I did some reading on peregrines and apparently other birds are their main source of prey and thriving more and more in cities where they've been encouraged to nest--I bet they do keep the pigeon population in check when they do! Did you ever see the falcons?

[lady-branwyn.livejournal.com]

There was a camera trained on their nest and a viewing screen in the lobby (this was nearly 20 years ago--before the rise of the Interwebz), so I used to watch them and their babies on that. I don't recall ever spotting them while they were hunting.
Their successors still live on the Terminal Tower and can be seen on the museum of natural history's falcon cam.

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

It's so terrific the falcons have thrived there!

[radbooks.livejournal.com]

I'm going to go to a raptor (mostly eagles I think) rescue center when I'm in Alaska this summer. It'll be cool learning about them and seeing them up close, but it might be hard seeing the injured ones. :( But at least they're getting helped!

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

Oh, that sounds fascinating! I'd love to see one of those places. They do such good work.

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

These webcams are a great idea. Let us know how this little family gets on.

[cairistiona7.livejournal.com]

I will!